Category: Education
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Winter Sky
Winter is often considered the best time for stargazing. You can see more stars when it’s cold because cold air tends to be clearer with less atmospheric moisture, resulting in a better view of the night sky with fewer clouds, making stars, planets and moon appear brighter and more visible. The moon, our nearest celestial…
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Planet parade for January 2025
We are starting 2025 with an astronomical phenomena known as a planet parade. A planet parade is celestial event where at least six planets are visible in the sky: Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus. The last two planet will require a telescope.
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NAP – K to Grade 5: Tracks on Trails – December 13, 2024
K-5 Forest Fridays: Tracks on Trails FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13 – 4 to 5:30 pm Believe it or not, foot or paw prints (tracks) can tell us a lot about an animal and their behavior. Whether they’re left in snow or in mud, tracks are all around! Come hone your tracking skills and learn about what…
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Maple
Maple (acer) is a hardwood tree. Maple timber is commonly used in flooring and furniture-making. Maple syrup is made from the sap of some maple species including sugar maples (acer saccharum). Maple tree pests are fungus, caterpillars, aphids and Asian long-horned beetles. The maple leaves are palmately (like a hand) lobed. The leaves are in pairs…
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Red Oak
Oak (genus Quercus) is a hardwood tree. Oak timber is commonly used in construction and furniture-making. Oak barrels are used for aging alcoholic beverages such as wine, sherry and whisky, giving them an added flavor and aromas. Oak smoke is used to flavor a number of food products. Oak trees have a large number of pests…
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Shagbark Hickory
Shagbark hickory (Carya ovate) is named after the recognizable feature of the mature tree. The bark in the higher truck splays out thus the adjective shagbark. Hickory is a hardwood tree. The leaves of the shagbark hickory are a compound odd numbered pinnate (central stem) leaf. The compound leaf is 12 to 24 inches long.…
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Ann Arbor Public School Nature Areas
The Ann Arbor Public Schools (AAPS) have 6 woods/nature areas associated with schools. To see more check the M-Live article Sleeping assets: Ann Arbor Public Schools owns nearly 200 acres of undeveloped land in city – mlive.com AAPS owns the central property containing the loop trail of Scarlett Mitchell Woods. Scarlett Mitchell Woods is used…
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Pheromones
Pheromones are chemicals that humans, animals and insects use to communicate. Pheromones are analogous to an excreted/secreted hormone. Read more on pheromones on the Wikipedia page. Pheromones are involved in almost every aspect of the honeybee colony life: development and reproduction (including queen mating and swarming), foraging, defense, orientation, and in general the whole integration…
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Fractals in Nature
Fractals are all around us. You are most likely carrying one right now. I’m a programmer and my logo is a fractal snowflake. Per Wikipedia, “a fractal is a geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales”. I’ll start with a simple example of the Cantor Fractal. The Cantor divides a line into three sections and…
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List of birds of Michigan
The following is a list of categories of birds in Michigan. Clicking on the link will take one to the category on Wikipedia. Ducks, geese, and waterfowl New World quail Pheasants, grouse, and allies Grebes Pigeons and doves Cuckoos Nightjars and allies Swifts Hummingbirds Rails, gallinules, and coots Limpkin Cranes Stilts and avocets Plovers and…